This gentleman, Matt Rutherford, was originally a customer of the former Chesapeake Rigging. He had asked Chesapeake Rigging for a standard rigging inspection and stated that he had plans of crossing the Atlantic. I never met with him face to face but distinctly remember his request because it wasn’t every day that one of our customers (who I believe happened to be new to boat ownership) threatened to cross the Atlantic. About two years ago or so I was at a post-regatta party and met Matt personally. He was was very nice and invited me back to his boat for some beers. His boat was a very distinctive Pearson but I did not remember him as a customer of Chesapeake Rigging at that time. I recognized the quality of the rigging craftsmanship and inquired as to where the work had been done. At that moment I asked the question, I could answer it myself; this was my handy work. As it turns out, he had just returned from a long hiatus in Africa (which explained the wild animal print interior). Apparently he had also learned a thing or two about fiberglass and gel-coat because the interior had custom fiberglass speaker boxes. He said that it would have been a long trip without a killer sound system. Since then he has taken on other endeavors like a solo northern passage around the Americas. I have stumbled over his story and his blog here. You should definitely take a look, especially if you are into ‘despite all odds’ kind of stories…